I like Dolphin, the default KDE file manager, a lot. I have used it for over 9 years. There are many features that I use regularly that I wouldn’t want to live without. In this post, I like to share my personal top 5. Some features are more obvious, others are hidden features.

1) Split windows

The split window view can be opened with the F3 key or by clicking on the Split icon. This is great for copying files from one location to another. Just drag and drop the files from left to right (or vis versa).

2) Integrated terminal

The build-in terminal can be opened by pressing the F4 key or by clicking on Control –> Panels –> Terminal. This is handy for the few Linux applications that need to be downloaded from an external website. For example: Oneplay Codec pack and Codeweavers Crossover Linux. The terminal automatically opens in the location that your are visiting, allowing you to directly input the zypper cli commands.

3) Show hidden files

Sometimes you want to edit or remove a configuration file. These files are often located in hidden folders in your Home directory. By showing the hidden files, you are able to navigate to these locations with ease.

4) Open With

The ability to open a file with the application of your choice is very handy. I like to open images with Gwenview by default. But for editing, I like to open them with Kolourpaint or GIMP. This feature allows me to do this with minimal effort.

5) Previews

You would think that this feature would be nr. 1. But unfortunately Preview didn’t always work as advertised. This was mainly a problem during the Qt 4 days (2009 – 2014). The Preview function is working without issues since the Qt 5 version of Dolphin. You can enable previews by clicking on the associated button. You can use the slider in the bottom right, to increase or decrease the size of the previews.

The KDE Plasma team knows that you want to take control over your computing experience. Many things work out of the box. Like using the multimedia keys on your keyboard to play and pause your music in Amarok. Or controlling the audio of individual applications in the audio volume plasmoid. The only problem: the browser didn’t play nice with the rest of the applications. This is now changing and you can try it already in openSUSE Leap 15.

Installation

The first thing that you need to check is if you have the plasma-browser-integration rpm package installed. In fresh installs of openSUSE Leap 15, this is installed by default. If you have performed an upgrade, you might need to install this application using YaST Software Management.

Experience

This add-on provides you with better control over your media. It is now possible to play and pause YouTube videos with the multimedia keys on your keyboard or with the media player plasmoid. It is also possible to hover over the browser in your task manager and pause the video from there.

The browser integration also makes it possible to send hyperlinks to your phone, using KDE Connect. You right-click on a hyperlink and select “Send Link to Device”, then select your phone from the list of connected devices.

It also integrates your downloads in your browser with the notifications plasmoid in the system tray area. You will see the progress of your download and a notification when it has completed.

The last feature is that you can search your browser tabs via the Krunner (Alt + F2) window. Click Enter and you will automatically be transported to the right tab in your browser. This is an amazing feature for people who have 50+ tabs open in their browser at all times. Think of the time it will save you to go to the right tab at once!

Plasma 5.13 or Plasma 5.12?

Plasma browser integration is the main feature of the Plasma 5.13 release notes. Lucky for us openSUSE Leap 15 users, openSUSE has managed to ship this feature in their Plasma 5.12 implementation. So this is something that you can enjoy right now!